The U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) annual plan identifies the audits, inspections, and other activities that the OIG intends to undertake to assist the Department in fulfilling its responsibilities to America's citizens and students. OIG's FY 2022 Annual Plan details the assignment areas and resources…

The Maine Department of Education (MDOE) leveraged the U.S. Department of Education's Rethink K-12 Education Models grant to provide significant funding to districts to support innovative solutions to persistent problems of practice--particularly those heightened by the pandemic. MDOE's grant began in fall 2020. It prioritized innovations focused…

School business officials can strike a balance between setting a long-term strategy and responding to short-term situations by implementing time management strategies. This article presents tips for time management that could help boost productivity and save time in this digital era. Tips include decreasing meeting times via Skype or…

American Indian and Alaska Native students enrolled in public schools have performed consistently below other students on national assessments from 2005-2019. The Johnson-O'Malley (JOM) program provides academic and cultural supports, through contracts, to meet the specialized and unique educational needs of American Indian and Alaska Native…

This paper is written for state educational agency (SEA) leaders who are considering the benefits of collaborative benchmarking, and it addresses the following questions: (1) What does benchmarking of best practices entail?; (2) How does "collaborative benchmarking" enhance the process?; (3) How do SEAs control the process so that "their" needs…

By applying just-in-time philosophy to today's school libraries, librarians can fulfill the role of program administrator by continuing to provide the resources students and faculty deserve, exactly at their individual points of need. Just-in-time librarianship is a mindset that could prove unsettling for some school librarians. The main facets of…

This article features a major statewide initiative in North Carolina that is showing how a consortium model can minimize risks for districts and help them exploit the advantages of cloud computing. Edgecombe County Public Schools in Tarboro, North Carolina, intends to exploit a major cloud initiative being refined in the state and involving every…

The Kentucky System of Interventions (KSI) framework emphasizes optimizing instruction through targeted accelerated learning, development of teacher expertise and responsiveness to the needs of all learners. This approach to Response to Intervention (RtI) provides the structures needed for closing achievement gaps, ensuring readiness to learn and…

Many school districts struggle to recruit sufficient high-quality principals for their schools. A variety of conditions contribute to this challenge, including the retirement of the baby boom cohort and diminishing interest in administrative careers due to the expanded responsibilities of school principals. In response, districts enact a range of…

Over the past five years, California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) recruited 39 Noyce Scholars for STEM teacher preparation in high-needs schools. As of April 1, 2014, the program has saved approximate $150,000 of NSF funding for this grant. In this summative report, program effectiveness has been examined in three aspects, "Noyce…

Given the current economic constraints facing the country, school districts in the U.S. have been pushed to develop annual budgets through a new lens and to accept the reality that budget adoption is a complex, political process. Whether a school district is rich or poor, growing or declining in enrollment, serving a specialized population or…

In late 2006, the New Zealand Government embarked on a series of initiatives to explore how the resources and expertise of eight, small, state-owned science research institutes could be combined efficiently to support science teaching in schools. Programmes were developed to enable students and teachers to access and become involved in local…

Historically, afterschool programs have functioned independently with little coordination among provider organizations or agencies, and public and private funders operating in isolation. Research conducted by the National League of Cities for The Wallace Foundation profiled 27 cities that were known to be taking steps to improve coordination among…

Many researchers would like to be helpful to out-of-school time programs, and practitioners see a need for good research. Yet communication between researchers and practitioners can be a challenge. In a recent series of Roundtables to discuss program needs and research evaluations held with program practitioners, Child Trends obtained important…

This guide is designed as a reference for District and School personnel working with English learners (ELs). The content of the guide represents a compilation of information, examples, and resources. This guide is a living document and subject to frequent updates. It is recommended to review the document online rather than printing a hard copy.